ScallopPotato

Alright, so I'm trying to get this mod to work, but I'm running into several game breaking bugs. 1) When I try to launch a craft, I tend to be put into orbit around the black hole instead of on the surface of Kerbin. Also, under these conditions, my craft is completely uncontrollable. Oddly enough, the atlas launch clamps from the FASA launch towers prevent this from happening, however... 2) Whenever I leave the game and come back (ie through tracking station), all the ships are in the same uncontrollable state, orbiting the black hole. Their orbits are highly eccentric, with an Ap of 13,000 MegaMeters and a Pe somewhere above the event horizon. Enjoy those tidal forces! 3) I don't know if this a glitch or is intentional, but Inaccessible is in a low orbit around the black hole instead of an orbit around Corbo. It sure makes the planet (puts on sunglasses) inaccessible. In addition, Erin is a medium orbit around Corbo instead of an orbit around Sentar. Once again, not sure if this was intentional or a bug. 4) When I tried installing the mod on a stock KSP install, the star systems didn't load. I think I didn't install the mod properly in this instance (dragging the mod folder from one game data folder to another). This occurred in a modded .90 save, so I'm in the process of ruling out if this the star systems mod, or the interaction between mods. The tracking station issue makes me think it's the former. I suspect the issue is the game getting confused about parent bodies and where the ships are supposed to start.

Yay for interstellar updating! But I don't like having the flat radiators being removed. I found them to be more practical and aerodynamic than the huge radiators. Most of my larger ships in Interstellar use the flat radiators.

I had thought about this question before, but in another contexst. Say if someone like SpaceX lands humans on Mars or the Moon, is that "America returning to the Moon/landing on Mars"? What are the qualifications? Do they just need American astronauts on board, does SpaceX's chartering in America make it count as American? Do they have to be public NASA astronauts, or do commerical/university/private astronauts count as well? At lot of this has to do with taking credit for the achievement, but it also factors into the politics in funding a mission and the jobs politicians will bring back to their state/district. To me, "America did it" counts if there are American citizens as Astronauts, and Americans were a key player in making the mission happen.

I do want to make this into a poster-like form. I love the idea of having them in the science classroom of a school, showing school kids how to get to Mars and back. Already read them both, plus a lot of other studies on mars missions. Nicholander: Yes, I will be using RSS. And EVE. Also, because of the 403 error, here's a link to the art gallery, under William Blake. I know I will be using tweak scale a lot (thank goodness for that mod), procedural fuel tanks, plus whatever other part mods required. I know the Near Future mod has trusses and tanks based on the Copernicus CTV, plus solar and ion engines for the latest SEP proposal by Boeing.

So my understanding is that KAS's recent bugs are only specific to the windows 64 bit version? I'm using a mac. Also, the "grab box, explode" was happening to me before this update.

I'm going to suggest that boosters that parachute down over land have higher recovery values than those landing in the ocean. Salt water corrosion was apparently a major issue with the shuttle's SRBs and made refurbishing them more expensive. The same would apply to liquid engines and all their delicate parts. In addition, if the booster in question has fuel left over at separation and a probe core, the game could also calculate if it has enough delta-v to do a rocket-assisted landing. Until that happens, I'm probably just going to strap multiple Marzia Boosters (my name for the LFB KR-1x2) and jumbo tanks together and use them to reach the ~3.3 km/s needed to reach orbit with Ferram.

Boy Scouts of America has its own STEM program - I imagine Kerbal would fit right in with either the boy scout or venturing levels. One of the guys from my crew showed up to the Kerbal panel back at SXSW and he was very interested in the game. ENGINEERING. GOING TO SPACE. YAY.

The proposed ones, of course. I feel that a lot of people don't know what exactly is required for a human mars mission - how much it costs, what the spacecraft(s) look like, what is done while on Mars, etc. Even I didn't really know what was required for the crew transits until I started playing KSP and then found out about all the NASA DRMs and such. I was already a proponent of sending humans to Mars, but having a better idea of what exactly is required made me even more confident in our ability to go and made me feel empowered as a citizen. I think there's this idea that a human mars mission would cost a trillion dollars or something outrageous like that, while that can't be farther from the truth. So what I'm thinking about is making a big poster or picture laying out the various proposed mars missions and their craft, showing how the mission profiles have evolved over time. This is what gave the idea to make this. Generally, the old 60s era proposals required more tons in LEO and shorter stays on mars, while newer missions have less tonnage and longer stays at mars. Price goes down, science goes up. More bang for your buck. I would recreate the ships in KSP (with mods of course) and show them in the LEO configurations before departing for Mars. The ships can be shown photogenically lined up next to each other to give a sense of scale and whatnot. Below is information about the various proposals, their mission profiles, costs, etc. I especially want to have a "cost per citizen" figure, because it makes it personal for us. "this is how much you'd pay over the time of the project". Any thoughts/suggestions?

I would rather not throw away my saves. Not everyone does the "new save for new version" thing. I personally am working through three major saves and I don't want to abandon any of them. Here's what I have: Ixnay-on-the-stupay: My 2nd save of the full version, active since ~November of 2013. I'm trying to conclude the save, mostly after learning so many things in the game and being "less stupid" (hence the game). Catrific-goes-to-Eve: My 2nd or 3rd career mode save, focused around a kerballed-Eve-mission. Project Colorado: My Interstellar career save. I've finished off the stock tech tree and I'm coming up with creative missions to get the thousands of science required for the advanced tech. I'm not in any rush to upgrade to .24. 64-bit support on the mac would be wonderful, but that's not happening yet. To be honest, I've been looking forward more to the preview videos than the update itself.

New Horizons will be passing the orbital plane of Neptune on the day I move into University. Naturally, I'm excited.

Back around the time the shuttle was retired, a couple of peak oilers and I had a discussion about the future of spaceflight. Their concern that scarce oil resources (i.e. ultra deepwater oil) and space age materials being petroleum based would make future civilizations unable to have access to space. Because 1) spaceflight as an enterprise is based on an industry and economy that needs cheap and plentiful energy and 2) Reaching remote sources of oil requires a lot of energy imput. It's like you're trying to mine platinum with a pickaxe. Oh, and they also mention the depletion of rare earth minerals. We all know how petroleum products (i.e. plastics, composites, etc) are EVERYWHERE in our lives, but they are also critical for spaceflight. But I'm wondering, how can spacecraft be constructed without petroleum products? Or, can such products be made from biological sources? I'm sure there are some papers on this subject. This is important for us humans, but I also see it applicable for alien civilizations. See, there could be intelligent species out there, but they could be among the first era of complex life on their planet, so they don't have reserves of fossil fuels to work with. Thus, they never leave their planet, and we never see them. Forever Farmer Grey.

The ISS is meant to have a certification goal of 2028, with the mission being funded until at least 2024. Many documents I've seen state the ISS is critical part of research and preparation for humans to mars. What comes next in LEO? I'm thinking Bigelow style inflatable stations. I can see space agencies like NASA buying an inflatable or leasing space on one to conduct scientific research. I also see research universities and the like doing the same. So, you could see private astronauts riding on private spacecraft to private space stations. "private" being not part of a space agency.

Quick question: Do the upgraded fission reactors come with Basic Nuclear Fusion or Particle Accelerators?

Am I the only one who looked at the story and immediately though, "I want to create this in RSS!" Let's calculate this! I want to create a mission profile.

I wanted to get the KOSMOS pack for the giant solar panels, but there was no forum download link and all the download links went to spaceport (which is of course gone). Alternatively, does anyone know of any sort of giant-solar panel mod out there?

Space sperm is a critical test to determine the feasibility of colonies on other words, and the laser transmitter helps out lots of other space probes and commercial sats too. Space plants is also critical for space colonies. I'm sure there's even better examples of SCIENCE being done on the station.

They didn't scrap the designs, they choose instead to use solar electric engines. Why develop a whole new high ISP engine (We had a thread about this earlier. Even with the results from NERVA, a modern NTR would be a new design that ultizes new technologies) when ion engines have already proven themselves in flight?

I do need to update Ferram, not sure about Interstellar.

Whenever I try to launch the huge radiators from the Interstellar mod, my rockets wibble wobble snap apart shortly after launch (at approx 200 m/s) . I'm using Ferram Aerospace and Procedural Fairings, and Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. Now, Ferram usually makes things easier (read: less dV to reach orbit), but the mod is acting like the radiators are deployed even when they're stowed inside the fairing. Apparently this is a problem with Interstellar, not Ferram. In any case, I need a fix for this problem if I'm going to construct big things in orbit. I just need help on a lot of things, really.

The various Mars DRMs indicated a need for a 130-140 ton heavy lift vehicle to launch the various components into LEO. Block II of the SLS meets those requirements, especially if the F-1B boosters are selected. I suppose it's possible to launch the crew and the habitat in one launch like the shuttle would do in DRM 3. Otherwise, the habitat and return vehicle could be launched unmanned then the crew gets a lift on a Dragon/Dream Chaser/other commercial craft. How have inflatables fallen out of interest? I haven't seen that happen, especially with Bigelow's progress. Bigelow would definitely be providing the inflatable for both the crew transfer vehicle and the Mars habitat. I know these studies were done before Fuki, but I haven't seen any real opposition to NTRs yet. I'm certain some people will protest, but I could once again reference how the reactors wouldn't be fired up until departure and how an unfired reactor is less radioactive than a RTG. I am certain that early missions will use SEP, simply because it's available now. I really like the idea of the microwave power to replace the solar panels, but I have a feeling developing such a technology may take more time and effort than simply making NTRs. I would like to see an update to the study that incorporates the Falcon Heavy, looking at the advantages and challenges of using the cheap 53 ton launch vehicle.

It's actually a Short Takeoff, but I'm sure those launch escape towers will help us get those planes in the air that can't pitch up from the runway.

I remember an article last year in a business magazine discussing the legal issues surrounding recording and producing a music video in a craft that can pass over dozens of countries in minutes. All the copyright laws, so complicated! But it wasn't an issue because Hadfield had permission to distribute his cover - for a year. I wish I could find the article about it. It was very interesting. Also note how many parts of the video seem to be filmed over an ocean (yar har fiddle de dee, sailing on the international seas).

You could put a Titan Spaceplane on the side of it xD

Go to page 22 of this powerpoint. An unfired nuclear reactor on the pad or during ascent is much less radioactive than an RTG. Those poison rods are going to be deep in there until the reactor reaches a safe orbit. The presentation also talks about testing NTRs, and open-air tests aren't needed anymore.